Housing Vacancies
Is the Real Estate Crash Over Yet?
Not hardly, according to this data from the Census Bureau. The percentage of vacant homes soared to another all-time high, 2.9%, in the the first quarter of 2008.
How can we have more vacancies when housing-starts are down dramatically? Foreclosures. Lots of them.
This is bad because as more-and-more houses are dumped onto the market, prices will be pushed down further. Supply and demand, right? Even worse is that as prices fall, more and more people fall into a negative-equity situation where they owe more on their mortgage than the house is worth. That creates an incentive to walk away from the house leading to more foreclosures. It’s a vicious circle.
About the Data
This data is published by the Census Bureau once a quarter. I have used the national vacancy rate here, but they publish quite a lot more data, including regional numbers.
The data series goes back to 1956, however I have started with 1968 because the earlier data is estimated. I’m sure that the estimates are very good, but I prefer the real thing.
Next Update
This report is released one month after the end of each quarter. So the number for 2Q08 will be released at 10am EST on July 24, 2008.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
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